‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 18, Episode 14 recap: Top of the morning to Ru

Are we still having fun? Because the end of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18’s in-season play—that is, everything but the LaLaPaRuZa and the finale—is kinda not feeling fun to me.

I have, by and large, enjoyed Season 18 as a week-by-week television viewing experience. The premiere was one of the strongest in years. The second design challenge was a hilarious episode of television, with some killer looks presented on the runway. Snatch Game of Love Island was a successful reinvention of the challenge that produced four really good performances. And the last design challenge—the episode that brought us the legend of forgotten 15th queen Crystal—rates as one of my favourite installments of Drag Race ever.

But even as I’ve mostly enjoyed individual episodes along the way, there have been warning signs flashing. Most notably, I wrote about the dangers of a bad boot order in last month’s edition of Wig!, and warned that we were on the precipice of a bad endgame if the wrong elimination decisions were made. When I wrote that, I never could’ve expected that Jane Don’t of all people, the statistical frontrunner who broke records with her streak of top placements, would be out in fifth place. As I wrote last week, this was a baffling decision for both the season and for Drag Race as a whole. If this episode is any indication, it will be the decision that defines Season 18’s reputation.

By the end of this episode, it is crystal clear to me who is going to win this season, who is going to be her runner-up and who in the finale doesn’t stand a chance at the crown. Talk about a lack of tension, huh? But with Jane’s elimination, as well as how this week’s morning show maxi-challenge goes, there’s no real way to misinterpret what the show is telling us. I’m not sure what sounds worse: the show playing all this out exactly as expected, or making another bizarre decision unsupported by the edit for shock factor. The fact that neither option sounds appealing speaks to some real poor storytelling by the show this season.

For the queens, Jane’s elimination is a shocker and personally devastating … but, after a moment of mourning, they come around to it. After all, the likely winner of the season is gone! The path is now very clear for queens who have played second fiddle to Jane track record-wise this season (Myki Meeks and Nini Coco), plus an insurgent who has slowly built her case for the win in fits and starts across the whole season (Darlene Mitchell). Hell, even Juicy Love Dion, who once seemed like an elimination inevitability, has some real momentum after a mid-season slump. While it certainly seems like Myki is best-positioned, no one’s track record is unsalvageable at this point: Nini and Juicy both have two wins to Myki’s three, and while Darlene only has one, she also has never been in the bottom two.

But Ru has a real curveball to throw at our final four: instead of a Rumix or a branding/interview challenge, as we’ve seen in seasons past, the last challenge of this season is a team morning show task. (“We couldn’t do a music video?” Juicy asks in confessional. “We couldn’t dance?”) Ru does hold Tic Tac chit chats with the queens, and the final runway category is Drag Excellence, but this episode otherwise feels a bit too standard for the semifinals. A Rumix works well for a final challenge because, along with testing dance and lyric-writing ability, it basically is one final lip sync task. Meanwhile, the branding/interview challenges they’ve done the past two seasons form a mini-gauntlet of sorts, testing the skills the queens will need in their work as America’s Next Drag Superstar.

This challenge, on the other hand, is an adaptation of a Season 9 challenge that happened at top 12. Sure, now the queens have to do every part of the challenge, instead of it being broken up among a whole team: they have to chat as co-hosts, deliver breaking news by reading a teleprompter, interview celebrity guest Zane Phillips (back from Snatch Game of Love Island!) and do a how-to segment with Zane. They’re shooting live, with Ross Mathews as their on-set producer, and outside of the breaking news bit have no script to work off of. So it’s not a total waste of a challenge, but the last one before the finale? Really?

After choosing who they’re going to work with—Myki doesn’t want a repeat of RDR Live, in which she coached Juicy to a win while simply placing safe herself, so she picks Darlene—they get to work. And by “get to work,” I mean “mostly stare at each other unsure of how to approach this challenge.” I hate to kick a cast when they’re down, and this crew has certainly taken their licks from the fandom already, but it’s so damning that this task, which is a reskin of a nine-year-old challenge, is such a hurdle for them in concept. One group ultimately figures it out, while the other struggles … though maybe not as mightily as the show makes it sound.

To keep himself busy—especially without Michelle Visage there—Ru spends his Tic Tac chats with the queens “painting” them. This is one of the stranger gags we’ve seen from Ru, as each portrait reveal is more disturbing than the last. (He really paints Myki like one of his French girls, while Juicy as a centaur is wild.) The chats themselves are actually pretty interesting: you can see Ru trying to wrap his head around Nini being a mechanical engineer, while Juicy gives us some more backstory about her sobriety journey. Apparently, her bad relationship with her father for six years prompted her to fall off the wagon, but they’ve since repaired the relationship and he’s supportive.

Myki actually gives us relatively little background info on her, instead sticking to explaining her story in the framework of Drag Race itself. (Well, and Pokémon evolution, because like me, she’s a nerd.) She wisely sets up the arc that she had to come from behind after the other queens put her in the bottom for the Rate-a-Queen Talent Show. And come from behind she has, never placing below high again and winning three challenges. Sure, the makeover win a couple weeks ago was crazy, but all that shows is that Ru is really invested in Myki. It almost feels like her crowning is inevitable.

And then we get to Darlene’s Tic Tac chat. Ru admits he didn’t expect to see Darlene in the final four, and Darlene says she doesn’t think the other queens did, either. But she credits her willingness to not play by “the rules”—to colour outside the lines of challenges, as she did in the Toast of Alyssa Edwards, to forge her own path. She also reveals a lot about her personal life, including that she threw most of her family in a group chat before leaving for Drag Race to come out as a drag queen. Some weren’t supportive, but her father was, which clearly means a lot to her. Additionally, she reveals she’s engaged, though that’s information that’s now outdated: as of last weekend, she’s married!

This is a dream Tic Tac chat, and it really bolsters Darlene’s case for the win—especially considering her performance in the maxi-challenge further backs up this idea of her making her own way through the challenges. Myki is great as her partner, pitch-perfect as a morning show host in almost every segment. (I say “almost” because they both really butcher the teleprompter reading in the breaking news portion.) But if Myki is perfect in the role, Darlene is perfect as Darlene. What she does “incorrect,” as Ross later puts it, is nonetheless infinitely charming. To paraphrase Phi Phi O’Hara about Alyssa Edwards, it’s okay ’cause she’s Darlene. Her natural charisma amplifies her uniqueness, nerve and talent, and makes her the clear standout of the week.

All of this would, in my book, be a recipe for a surprise Darlene win in two weeks, especially since she scores her second maxi-challenge win here. Unfortunately for Darlene, Myki also gets her fourth. Yes, in a decision I personally find a little puzzling, Ru declares a double win this week. Myki does well, no doubt, but his praise of Darlene is a notable step higher. I think it would’ve been totally appropriate for Darlene to win alone here—and the fact that Ru still wanted to give Myki her shine indicates to me that she’s still very much the frontrunner.

With Darlene and Myki both winning, you already know who the bottom two is. Yes, Juicy and Nini are the losing team, although they’re not as bad as the judges would have you believe. Their worst segment, in my book, is the host chat—it’s too stilted, and they try the same thing that one team always does in these challenges where the anchors secretly hate each other. (This is in every edition of RDR Live’s Weekend Update parody, and it’s terrible every time.) Myki and Darlene are a blast of breezy girl chat in comparison, and I think it gets this duo off on such a wrong foot that Ross is irritated with them for the rest of the challenge.

They actually kill the teleprompter reading, not so much as hesitating with a complicated script, and they’re pretty personable with Zane in both his interview and the how-to segments. There are two main issues that crop up on Juicy’s end: first, that she keeps missing Ross’ prompts to wrap it up, and that she gets too horny in her interactions. I understand the former—it demonstrates poor attention to what’s happening around you—but not the latter. This is Drag Race! Horny jokes are part and parcel of the whole thing! As my friend and colleague Mathew Rodriguez put it in a text to me, “Since when do your little skits not include innuendo?” It feels like a reason engineered to get rid of Juicy, when there’s already plenty of reason to do that.

We then see the drag excellence runway, which features Juicy in a gorgeous dripping-in-gold look, Nini in a killer spiked eleganza outfit, Myki in a stunning celestial gown that has an unfortunately limp wire with cheap-looking ornaments attached to it and Darlene looking the most stunning she ever has in gold and red. They don’t seem to do anything to move the needle, though, as Ross even calls Juicy’s runway the worst of the night. This, more than anything, is a sign that Juicy is screwed. In no world is her runway worse than Myki’s. But the show is invested in a Myki win, and in a Juicy elimination, so the judges must bolster that narrative.

Juicy and Nini must lip sync to Chappell Roan’s “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl,” a banger of a song, but one we just saw the finalists lip sync to on Canada’s Drag Race Season 6. The lip sync is solid, if worse than the Canada version because the song is cut down so much, but the edit is absurd. It’s very clear that Juicy, who emerges from her runway garment into a dance-friendly look, is just cleaning Nini’s clock. Nini’s doing the best she can, but her gown is super restrictive, and she doesn’t bother to get out of it. (A shame, because she has a very popular version of this song she does in a dance-friendly outfit.) So instead of showing Juicy, and adding the usual sound effects to her stunts, the edit just focuses on Nini. It’s one last insult to Juicy as she’s made to sashay away, while Nini joins Myki and Darlene in the finale.

I have quite a few quibbles with this final three, including how two of them were barely featured in the story of the season until halfway through. (I also must look askance at the first all-white finalists group on the flagship series in many years.) But I’m more troubled by the journey that took us here. We lost a lot of personable, interesting queens along the way to wind up with a very milquetoast group left competing for the crown. And, of course, whoever wins will have to deal with the asterisk that is the question of whether Jane would’ve beaten them in the finale. But, we are where we are, and we must press on. For my part, I’m most excited to see the eliminated queens return next week for the LaLaPaRuZa. It’ll be good to see some of the stars we’ve been missing back on TV.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨ I kinda breezed over the maxi-challenge in my recap, mostly because I didn’t like it much, but I do want to give props to Zane Phillips for a very game, fun appearance in both teams’ shows. I don’t know much about Zane outside of a few of his acting roles (Fire Island! Glamorous!) and his Drag Race appearances, but I’ve come to really appreciate him as an out-and-proud celebrity who relishes in his sexuality. While I respect anyone’s own journey in coming out, there’s something refreshing about him openly and happily talking about his boyfriend, Froy Gutierrez, and consistently engaging with gay media. He’s hot and charismatic enough that, if he had wanted to, he could’ve dodged labels and shied away from talking about his relationship, which probably would’ve landed him more mainstream, “straight” roles. That he didn’t, to me, speaks highly of his values. Seems like a good dude!

✨ Myki asks Juicy how it’s going to feel to tell Morphine she out-placed her. I laughed! Miss you, Morphine.

✨ “Ru Rule #115: A side ponytail is your best defense against financial ruin.” Not only is this weird, it also has nothing to do with the maxi-challenge. I would love for Ru Rules to never come back, to be honest.

✨ Myki questions what Juicy knows about the news. “Juicy, what’s Dateline? What’s 20/20? 60 Minutes? Do you know who Diane Sawyer is?”

✨ I feel icky about how differently Ru and the show treat Darlene and Juicy’s recovery journeys. It’s nice to see Ru get so choked up about Darlene getting sober, and relate to her about it. (I do think that’s mostly about Darlene getting sober with her partner specifically, since Ru shares a similar story.) But why do we not see Ru connect with Juicy getting clean in the same way? It’s not just that Ru only talks to one of them about it—Juicy brings up falling off the wagon and getting back up in her Tic Tac chat. Then, in deliberations, Michelle has the audacity to say that while she’s a 10 in dance and looks, in terms of “life experiences,” Juicy is at a “five.” I defend Michelle from a lot of the bullshit critiques from fans, but this is pretty gross. Juicy may be young, but she’s experienced a lot. Her recovery journey is worthy of just as much emotion and recognition from the judges. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

✨ Oscar nominee Teyana Taylor is our guest judge this week, and she brings exactly the right spirit and energy for this. In fact, I wish she’d gotten to be on an episode with more to discuss in critiques, because she brings a really sharp eye. I wish I could agree with the flowers she gives the judges at the end of deliberations, but they’ve pissed me off too much the last couple episodes.

✨ No ball challenge this season? No Rumix or makeover? I can’t help but feel like the challenge design choices this season, save a few clever ideas (the “Who Wore It Best?” design task, the mid-season Rate-a-Queen Talent Show), left a lot to be desired.

✨ Credit where it’s due: Nini has sent home the fan favourite, the frontrunner and the Lip Sync Assassin in a row. I may not have agreed with all those decisions, but that’s still quite impressive.

✨ I’ll explain more about who I think will win in the power rankings, but in terms of who I want to win … in a surprise to myself, I actually think it’s Darlene. I think Myki has earned her spot in the finale, and I spent much of the season rooting for Nini. But I buy the case Darlene makes this week: she has approached the competition on her own terms, and has bent it to work for her, versus the other way around. Her arc reminds me a lot of Crystal Methyd’s in Season 12. Back then, I rooted for the pageant/hostess queen (Jaida Essence Hall) to win—this time around, I think I’m riding for the quirky gal.

The reunion LaLaPaRuZa episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Friday, April 10, at 8 p.m. EST on MTV in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. Check back every Monday after new episodes for our recaps and power rankings, and subscribe to our drag newsletter Wig! for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every month.